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To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

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Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#32
post #8
post #3

This is just a basic hygrometer. It's not a mold detector at all. Is this really the level of innovation the army considers impressive? They are taking at least $400k to build 5500 hygrometers. This is something that already exists off the shelf for even less than that.

If the army buys 5500 hygrometers from aliexpress to install in a military base, they won't just be reading moisture

Does the army have strict controls over what troops can bring in the barracks? I get that there are some security implications, but not really. These are super basic devices and there are some very simple controls that can be put in place to mitigate any real concerns.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#33

You can ozonate (use an ozone generator) and drivenout all sorts of undeaireables: rodents, bedbugs, virus particles. Every home should have one. And a reverse osmosis water filter. But nm me.

Hasn't the epa said that it doesn't make a difference[0] and can be create ozone levels higher than the current health standard?

0: https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/ozone-generators-...

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#34
post #2

If you want to understand why we've been losing wars for 70+ years, look no farther than this perfect microcosm of the U.S. military's approach to leadership. Field grades denying it's a problem, gaslighting those who say it's a problem, doing everything they can to suppress discussion about the problem – and then a bunch of lower enlisted dudes having to FFIO on their own.

The military as an institution has its flaws, sometimes serious ones. And one could make a serious argument that an up-or-out stack-ranked promotion system is toxic, inefficient, and ineffective at promoting true talent. But the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years," and the overall tone of this post screams "disgruntled junior enlisted who thinks they have all the answers." It's something I'd fra…

Fuckin' get 'em! Agreed with your general sentiment. The navy probably does have a bigger problem with the cult of the chiefs, but the Army less so with its senior enlisted. But the problem is the JBSA post commander LTG Jones told Vice literally on Friday that "I don't have a mold problem, I have a discipline problem." And it's just a gross lie at this point.

https://12ft.io/proxy?&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen%2Fa...

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#36

> The problem of mold in barracks flared into the news again last week with a Government Accountability Office report that found barracks at 10 installations posed “serious health and safety risks,” with black mold infestations, broken doors and locks and non-military people sleeping in the barracks. In some cases, troops were even left to clean up “biological waste” left by their peers who committed suicide. Maybe t…

>Maybe that last one is worth investment as well. Not just having an outside party clean it up, but prevention?

The military has two readily available levers: money and mandated training. Only the latter is applicable, so we spend hours each year sitting in training full of trigger warnings and trying to destigmatize Discussion about suicide.

Young men have a fairly high rate of completed suicide, and removing them from their social fabric must exacerbate the problem. There may be correlated socio-economic factors between completed suicides and the men who go into the military.

The powerful factors are the work environment and leadership, which the military works desperately to improve by any means they can contrive, and culture, which the military would be powerless to fix, even if underlying society could agree on how to stop funneling people into suicide.

So, if you ever recommend more suicide prevention around servicemen, know that that is why you'll likely earn a rousing, "fuck off."

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#37
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds a lot like "Just following orders" and "You weren't there". > And frankly I don't care That's just it though. This isn't about you. Sports game or not, there are losers in war; and it's been us , a lot , for decades . Whoever you try to blame, whatever you call people who point this out, that fact remains true.

You are very much missing the point. If you read the one thousand page postmortem on the invasion of Iraq - lots of blame to be placed on civilian leadership and intelligence. A few: The core reasoning (WMD) was the CIA misinterpreting Saddam grandstanding to his generals as a serious WMD program. This was due to the CIA having an insufficient grasp of the local situation, largely due to the fact that we had only inf…

You are missing the point; none of what you said refutes what you were replying to. While the civilian leadership does have the authority to order the military to stand around, get shot for a while, and go home having achieved nothing, presumably that's not what they actually asked for or wanted. Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on the part of the military; perhaps not a failure of procurement or management, but very much a failure of leadership, which is exactly what OP originally said.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military as an institution has its flaws, sometimes serious ones. And one could make a serious argument that an up-or-out stack-ranked promotion system is toxic, inefficient, and ineffective at promoting true talent. But the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years," and the overall tone of this post screams "disgruntled junior enlisted who thinks they have all the answers." It's something I'd fra…

Fuckin' get 'em! Agreed with your general sentiment. The navy probably does have a bigger problem with the cult of the chiefs, but the Army less so with its senior enlisted. But the problem is the JBSA post commander LTG Jones told Vice literally on Friday that "I don't have a mold problem, I have a discipline problem." And it's just a gross lie at this point. https://12ft.io/proxy?&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen%…

Well that's a public faceplant on line with the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy telling the GW Sailors "at least you're not in a foxhole" after a rash of suicides during a yard period.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#39
post #37
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are very much missing the point. If you read the one thousand page postmortem on the invasion of Iraq - lots of blame to be placed on civilian leadership and intelligence. A few: The core reasoning (WMD) was the CIA misinterpreting Saddam grandstanding to his generals as a serious WMD program. This was due to the CIA having an insufficient grasp of the local situation, largely due to the fact that we had only inf…

You are missing the point; none of what you said refutes what you were replying to. While the civilian leadership does have the authority to order the military to stand around, get shot for a while, and go home having achieved nothing, presumably that's not what they actually asked for or wanted. Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on…

> Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on the part of the military; perhaps not a failure of procurement or management, but very much a failure of leadership, which is exactly what OP originally said.

Good God, what are you on? The military literally does not get to make these decisions. Only the civilian leadership in the form of the President and Congress gets to decide when and where the military goes to war. And as much as US military officers learn from Day 1 that it's their duty to refuse illegal orders (and it is), the day a combatant commander or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs tells the President or Secretary of Defense "no, this war is illegal" is the day we have ourselves a constitutional crisis, for good or ill.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#40
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point; none of what you said refutes what you were replying to. While the civilian leadership does have the authority to order the military to stand around, get shot for a while, and go home having achieved nothing, presumably that's not what they actually asked for or wanted. Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on…

> Getting into the situation where you go to war that you're not going to be able to win absolutely represents a failure on the part of the military; perhaps not a failure of procurement or management, but very much a failure of leadership, which is exactly what OP originally said. Good God, what are you on? The military literally does not get to make these decisions. Only the civilian leadership in the form of the P…

> The military literally does not get to make these decisions. Only the civilian leadership in the form of the President and Congress gets to decide when and where the military goes to war.

Sure, but it's the responsibility of the military to be clear to them about what they can and can't do (or, more likely, what it's going to cost, in money and casualties, to achieve x). Obviously yes if the President actually orders you to fart around and get shot then you do it. But if the President thinks sending three brigades to $country is going to keep the civilians there safe in the current crisis, it's the responsibility of the military leadership to know and advise whether that's a three-brigade job or not.

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